I want to thank you, Anne-Kathrin, for your truth about all of this marketing things around our professional hardware and software - you really destroy these mistakes in my mind) Really happy, that RUclips suggested your channel to me)
It's super cool to listen to a real professional composer on RUclips, i thought even the professionals just used a simple macbook these days and that was it. Very interesting to see the whole technical side of it, even though theres no application to my own life whatsoever :D
No. Professionals don't use macbooks. Tom Holkenborg's channel is a real Hollywood level movie composer level take on this. He's also using a PC and he doesn't game.
I’m the same. Been doing music for years but have been getting into media composition over the last year. Someone mentioned Anne so I am going to sit, listen and learn. I’m a bit lost with where to go with it all. I am at this moment a sponge.
This is the first I'm hearing of you. You have very solid advice and I like your pointing out using multiple smaller hard drives vs. 1 or 2 large drives. And it's not just for spinning disks. You'll get faster load times overall with SSDs and NVMes as well that way. But whatever disks people are using PLEASE make sure you spread them out over as many disk io buses as possible. Typically disk SATA connections that are stacked vertically on top of each other are part of the same bus and therefore sharing bandwidth... check your hardware manual. If you're not using all your separate disk io buses, you're wasting potential speed and bandwidth. Lastly make sure the disk connection you're plugging into can go as fast as your disk! If you put a brand new SSD in an older motherboard, use the fastest SATA connection available on your motherboard.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I’m a strong supporter of creatively making the things you already have work before buying new gear and thinking that will solve every problem.
Anne - the sheer musical talent and expertise you have is what you are all about, as opposed to expensive gear for the sake of it. But it's also great that you are clearly knowledgeable about your gear and can repair and maintain it yourself - not reliant on helpers and techies. Much respect to you. x
I totally agree with you. The cutting edge makes everything simple. We don't need so many things. But many producers who wanna show off tend to have (but not using) too much equipment. My system is also pretty much a minimalist setting. I have less than yours, but no problem with making music at all.
Such a great overview! Thanks for sharing! Toward the end you mentioned downsized set ups. In the actual MIDI Rack sampler/ Gigastudio days I had 7 PCs for gigastudio, Mac for the DAW, several rack samplers and 3 Yamaha O2R mixers with all those midi channels running through actual cables. It was a lot of stuff! Now I’m down to just one computer, 3 monitor screens and a few peripherals (external SSD drives, Presonus Quantum) midi keyboard and fader unit and that’s it! It’s great we don’t need SOOO much stuff anymore:)
Thanks! Very interesting. One thing I would stress is the importance of backing up and archiving to external drives. A power supply malfunction can wipe out every internal drive in your system. This has happened to me.
It’ll technically be fine if you have an online backup but I agree, better safe than sorry, especially if this is your main income source. God forbid, something gets fried and the online backup hasn’t finished uploading yet.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer I work for an IT MSP and I can testify to the number of customers that prove this maxim: "There are two types of people: 1. Those who do backups. 2. Those who will do backups." If you don't backup now, you will eventually.
Yes, I love VEPro and I'm very much enjoying the new PC. There are some minor things I miss about the Mac system but there seem to be way more advantages to the PC than there are drawbacks.
I’ve worked on headphones for about 5 years now with sonarworks I bought my Sennhieser 600HDs from them. Made a big difference and translates really well. I usually only have to make minor adjustments in my monitors which also run sonarworks . Nice to hear professionals are doing the same!
Couldn’t agree more about working on headphones. Great speakers, small speakers and quality headphones are a very useful formula for making mix decisions, but I primarily do most creative work in phones.
Yeah, the backlash on using headphones is confusing a lot of beginners I think. When I started out I thought I should spend 3000$ on speakers, and 2000$ (and a ton of work) on room treatment and room correction software. That seems reasonable if you're a mixing engineer, I just spend 150$ on headphones, and it works great.
Indeed! I thought the same! And then I started working at a variety of composer studios here in LA and headphones were really the norm. Mixing engineers will still of course work on a proper surround system but having treated rooms and high end speakers is essential for their job. It's not essential for our job. Those thousands of dollars are better spent on strong computers, controllers, and software.
I find open back headphones are a nice compromise. I have AT-R70 and they sound great. It almost feels like you are listening to monitors. And frankly, if your room isn't treated, then monitors won't give you an honest mix either.
@@soundtreks Agree. But monitors are great to hear music at full blast with their inherent bass. I just love listening to loud music and feeling the bass vibration everywhere, haha, even if my room is not treated (and I am not at all a pro but I have good ears, so for now I consider the sound of my JBL MK3 very good anyways). @Anna-Katherin Dern : just found your channel a couple days ago and I love the content! Keep it up!
It is actually great to see a professional discuss their equipment. It shows that on top of a good pc setup you don't need that much of music hardware to do great stuff. So many people obsess and buy extremely expensive music hardware.
Thank you so much for the guidance and wisdom. Your videos have been extremely beneficial to my learning about the composing industry and I'm so grateful for your channel. As an upcoming composer and synthestrator, I'm very much looking forward to viewing more of your videos in the near future.
I work from a 16" MacBook Pro with no problems as i have to be / like to be mobile as in NOT tied to my studio..but you have some good advice in there! Love your sample library vids!
It certainly depends on your needs and workflow - and what style of music one writes. I couldn't do what I need to do for my projects on a MacBook Pro and I'd find it very risky to work from a machine I can't open and quickly fix myself on a deadline. But I understand that some people have to have a portable setup.
Hello Anne from France (Paris) Best reco & channel for Composer. Very efficient, pragmatic and usefull. Thank you to share you're advices and feeback on each videos you publish ;)
Don't know why I didn't run into your YT channel before but your youtube channel is the one I was looking for for years! I realy like your way of putting things in perspective. With this YT contribution you helped me making my own hardware choises. Thanks for making and shairing!
Thank you again Anne-Kathrin, your channel is by far one of the most useful I know for media composers ! As a die-hard mac user, this is eye-opening... I will have to do some research and a have good think. Also, I was sure I needed to upgrade my monitors to a 10,000€ system at some point, now I'm not so sure I need to do that so soon. I use the DT 880 pros, also thanks to your advice. Tkx and bonjour from France!
Thanks a lot for ensuring me that mixing on headphones is common in a professional context, and for reminding me that fancy hardware actually comes with some technical trouble. Points that are rarely made.
Her message is it's fine to 'work' with phones doing general duties, but mixing is not recommended w/phones unless that's the best you have to work with. I'm sure Anne doesn't need to do her own mixing.
Hi, Anne! You are a great person and thank you for sharing your work ! I use HD6XX & DT770pro with dSONIQ RealPhones (It's do more then Sonarworks) and I'm very happy with phone correction + ROOM simulation as plugin and system driver too. In addition will buy (later) and Acustica Audio SIENNA for more room options when mixing and mastering. Be safe :)
This is all great advice. I’ve never understood why people say you need speaker monitors for production, you absolutely do not. As long as you know your headphones/speakers/whatever and regularly reference against current tracks, you’re good. For mixing, yea, you need speaker monitors, but even then you still need a good set of reference headphones and preferably other sets of speakers reference through…including your car stereo. But speaker monitors are near useless without room treatment, your music will not sound the way you think it does on other systems until you treat your room. It’s miserable…
The key to good audio when you're using headphones or even speakers is to get them as acoustically flat as possible. I use the very very old Alesis Monitor One MK2. I've had them for more than 25 years and they're still working just fine. They were almost always found in every studio back in the Early 90s. They have a flat response, meaning they don't color your sound. If you use a frequency analyzer to compare and contrast the original signal compared to the sound from the headphones or speakers, you can see how close they are. If there is any majore discrepancies at a particular frequecy band, you can compensate. By having the monitors and headphones be as close acoustically as the original source, what you hear is what was produced
After a whole year, I just met your channel. One of the best suggestions of youtube. Love your down to earth explanation and complete honest and clear explanation. Immediately subscribed.
Cool. I’m looking to do a pc upgrade soon due to struggling with orchestral compositions on an old system.... though not got $4K lol. Love to see your software and instrument go-to’s in a future video. Thanks Anne-Kathrin
Setting up 2 computers - 1 for samples and 1 for DAW - sounds cool. I wish I knew more about this. If I use two Macs is this a simple process? Which DAWs are compatible with this way of working? It sounds so great.
Ich finde Deine Herangehensweise Klasse. Praktisch, uneitel und lösungsorientiert. Ach, kompetent habe ich noch vergessen. Achse, zum Mixen über Kopfhörer gibt es ein tolles Waves Plugin, das auf das NX-System aufsetzt und die Abhörcharakteristika verschiedener Studios emuliert und Korrekturkurven der gängigsten Kopfhörer enthält. Ich bewundere Dich. Viel Erfolg.
Great insights Anne. Interesting to hear that so many professional composers use headphones. Currently because of my financial and living situation i haven’t been able to get studio monitors and room treatment. I didn’t know mixing with headphones could go such a long way. What you’re saying is making me consider saving up for better headphones instead of monitors+acoustic treatment
Wow ! A very impressive setup ( as well as real world knowledge) for your host - server hardware environment. A Smart strategy working with your storage. Excellent knowledge transfer and delivery in this video.
Great video Anne, I am amazed with amount of knowledge you have accumulated and the versatility between music and technology, I think every musical artist needs both these days. I personally build my own computers and have one computer system for everything, not ready for 2 computer system yet, very similar to what you do, although I have noticed some ancient floppies on your desk!! I hope they are a coaster for your coffee. with 6 core HT, 7 SSD's, 64GB Ram I am able to get 40-50 tracks without any real pressure on the system, I really enjoy doing mock ups, maybe people here can check them out. Cheers!
Haha, the floppy disks are indeed coasters for my coffee. They are seemingly the secret star of my videos. :-) I agree, every musical artist needs to get comfortable with tech as well as the art. You may not need a two computer system by the way. Plenty of composers are now slowly transitioning to single computer setups because both the latest Intel builds as well as the AMD Ryzen Threadripper builds are powerful enough to build one massive machine that runs everything. It's certainly where we're headed in the future.
BTW while I was listening to/watching this I was downloading Nucleus Core, cutting my veggies for my meals, washing up, taking out the trash and relacing my trainers. 😸😸
I've seen a half dozen or so of your videos. I'm so brand new to this genre and very grateful for your content. Can you talk about your DAW(s) of choice, maybe pros and cons for this genre? And also, can you do a walkthrough of a good basic template? Maybe you could discuss the strategy and thought behind designing templates. Thank you again for your great presentations!
Cheers to a more minimalist setup! It's been interesting to see, even with the new Mac generation, how composers are shifting to a PC setup. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Saw your wonderful choir video, and so watching your hardware video surprised me how relevant. I’ve been using Macs since 1990 and just discovered a Microsoft machine that was affordable, and is kind of a surprising solution right now for me. Thank you for all the great advice, on redundant back up, but especially of the Uninterrupted power s( U.P.S. ). You’re a great musical talent, that isn’t relying on, and at the mercy of, some technician to bring it out. You can produce yourself, which is also a great talent
This is once more a beautiful video. As an IT Specialist it toally agree with you about the unnecessary use of a mac-mac connection 😂. Also your Threadripper advice is a very strong part, because Intel's XEON's or Extreme's are sometimes more than double the price of an AMD, and for processing FX you definitely want to have cores cores and more cores 😀. Let me say that from a technically aspect you really have two beautiful PC's, I always preferred Intel above AMD but when it comes to cores, Intel really lacks here. Great choice of Motherboard aswell ! 6:45 you got me 😂
Thank you! I'm indeed very happy with my PCs and for the price, I can invest in upgrades or entirely new machines every 3 years or so anyway. Not regretting the switch from Mac at all.
Thankyou, Anne. I was particularly curious about the backup solution you use as I'm trying to figure out how I will solve that problem myself at the moment.
I'd like to share my experience with headphones and sonarwork. It has been really useful to me, I'm not gonna lie. BUT, since i got my pair of Meze Neo 99 (which is not recommended for mixing at the first place), I saw a huge difference between with or without sonarwork. And it's clearly better without it. The reason is simple : you don't listen to music with flat signal, and almost nobody does actually. I totally agree with the "know your equipment" part. Cause since I accepted that the low end were boosted on a pretty wide range, and the 4k Hz and around was reduced, and that I get used to it, I just got my mixes better. And after a thousand hours using it, my mixes are balanced, sound like I want them to, and iZotope Tonal Balance Control confirms. Cause this plug in is btw, way more useful than any Sonarwork-like plug-in in my humble opinion. And finally, a bit of a match EQ on the master bus, at the end of the session, with a really well selected reference track is perfect to adjust the little defaults my headphones have made me doing, especially on this 4k Hz point I was talking about. It's not always doable, but when it is it's efficient, and it perfectly does the job for me and my collegues. Speakers and rooms are too expansive for 99% of us, and I agree with the fact that is a better choice to work on headphones, unless you indeed have 10k to invest in a room and decent speakers...
Something that is never mentioned is that our own hearing has different frequency responses to other people. If my hearing is not so good with high frequency pitches, I would mix it too high for others if using flat responses calibrated headphones. Therefore a hearing test would have to be considered in a calibration software.
BEAUTIFULLY DONE - Love the way you present your info, how you share the knowledge, the depths to that end, and your conversational style. (one request, is on each video, can you also demonstrate whatever piece of equipment you are talking about, by playing some of your own music. I'm delighted when I hear your clips, and always want MORE, and LONGER. Love 'em.
Nice video. I totally agree on the use of headphones instead of speakers if you are on an unprepared room. My case is very similar, I just record things at home and the room is not prepared for that, so I use headphones although I also have the speakers, but headphones are better for that case. Great advice on taking backups, that's important for sure.
Have you ever thought about going for a branded graphics workstation PC (e.g. HP Z4 or Lenovo P620). You can get 5 year next busines day on site support, which is important if you are a pro composer. I replaced my old workstation last year, with a Lenovo P620. It’s an absolute beast, using an AMD thread-ripper pro CPU. (Available with 12-64 cores), supports up to 1TB Ram, 2x PCIe gen4 nVMe slots and 6 (5 free) Sata connectors. I bought the 32-core version with 128GB Ram and 2 1TB nVMe drives for the OS (mirrored)and installed 5 Sata SSD’s from my old computer in it. I can confirm that it doesn’t complain about anything I throw at it. It’s important to know that graphics workstations never come with a graphis card as users tend to have very different requirements. I ordered a Nvidia RTX4000 (8GB vram) which supports my two 32” 4K monitors.
When you look to getting new speakers check out Kali Audio. The LP-6 and LP-8 are great but even better the IN-5 is what I have. Very good in a smallish room. A little treatment and you'll be good.
I've done some room correction work in my small room but that was only to dampen sound a bit towards my neighbour. I am very pleased with my decision to have a woolen floor covering, I love the sound in here with my Kali LP 6 speaker, without even using any bass traps. I use a Beyer Dynamic 770 ( a closed headphone) instead. Also pleased with my Focusrite 8i6 though I know there is better stuff out there (although not fitting my budget).
I'm a bit late to this video so I expect you have figured a small desktop MIDI controller with faders by now. My nephew uses Monogram (née Palette Gear) and loves it. I've heard Christian Henson over at Spitfire Audio enthusing about it too. Great video as always.
I know I'm late to this party, but just wanted to add that I've moved to a 2x Xeon Cpu Server as my main machine... keeping a look out, I found an 2x 8-core (16 cores total) at 3.3ghz (E5-2667 v2) HP Z820 with 32gb RAM with K4000 video for €700. Works great and a great price... I've also occasionally seen 2x Xeon 6-cores at 3.3ghz or higher for around €600
Surprised you did go RME which have rock solid drivers for Windows based systems. Universal Audio have some great stuff. Being in keyboard sales (and media composer), I highly recommend Arturia Keylab 49 or 61 series. Metal case, wood bookends. Great quality. The NI stuff is good but the action is springier and they aren't made as well. Unless you are playing in piano parts, orchestral writing is possible with smaller keyboards, especially if you are using expression maps in Cubase for switching articulations. Oh, and TOTALLY agree about headphones, I've never had any criticisms about my mixes and they are all using headphones. Open Back headphones are amazing. Yeah the HDs are amazing. I went with their competitor, the Audio Technica AT-R70 which I could literally wear 24/7 with no ear fatigue.
There are many ways to go about this and many would have worked for me. I've worked on so many rigs at so many studios and have visited even more since most of my friends are also my colleagues. So I picked what I liked best or what worked best with my particular workflow and what fit my needs the most at the best price point. It'll certainly change and evolve over time the same way my template changes and evolves along with my workflow. But some things I just don't need for my particular workflow or writing style. At least not right now and not for the space I'm in.
Loved everything about your presentation. I'm going for a PC that combines the best of VI plus PC-VR combination. I didn't catch the name of that HD drop in unit. I want that! I just bought a Studio Logic 88 key controller and find myself consuming film and doc mockup productions information, although I don't have much interest in it creatively...I think it all sounds mostly the same to me without much latitude for individual expression. I feel it's mostly about getting a pay-check.
I use the Shure SRH840 to mix, record and listen to most of my (and other peoples) music. Combined with dSoniqs Realphones (basically the same as the Waves plugin, which I also use) it does the trick for me. My monitors are pretty cheap and lack low frequencies (Cakewalk MA-15D), BUT, as you said, if you know your equipment well it completely works out.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Nice! :) A way of clearing your mind for sometime. Like a way of resting after your maybe tired of working for a particular time. Hope I'm somehow close to correct by my thoughts.
Yes, absolutely! It’s good to get out and get some fresh air and vitamin D after being indoors staring at a screen. It’s also my way of getting in a bit of exercise and staying somewhat fit. Having a purpose to get out there for some footage is even better.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Cool! :) That's good :) I sent a question initially related to the sound quality of instruments you use in Sibelius. message on Instagram. Haven't seen any reply. (@pax40004real) Hope I'm not targeted on blade runner world :). Would like to talk when your free on Instagram if that's ok with you.
Hi Anne-Kathrin, first of your videos I've seen and it was very informative! I had a question about streaming samples from the second machine, and about network bandwidth. Do you run gigabit ethernet or higher between the two? Is GbE fast enough in your experience? I ask because I've never had this setup but I'm considering it and wondering about going 10G. Anyway, great channel! Cheers.
Nice and useful video. Two remarks: 1) a physical backup in another location might be essential in case of a fire or a flooding. 2) I'm intrigued by the floppy disks. Modern desktops don't have floppy drives anymore, so do you have the hardware to read them?
Thanks for all your great explanation, Anne! I was in agony questioning if I have to buy the insanely expensive new Mac Pro which will be at least $20K for my setting. I'd like to recommend ICON Platform M+ for the 100mm faders. It has a small footprint and mapping editor you can save your MIDI CC settings (As a MIDI CC controller, it doesn't need the display screen, D2).
I'm glad this was helpful! Yeah, seeing the price tag of the new Mac Pro sealed the deal for me to switch to PC. I've done several movies on it now without any problems whatsoever - never looked back! I'll look into your recommendation, thank you for sharing!
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer My pleasure, Anne! Happy composing! Here's the link for the fader! It's only $300 and better than the old and expensive Fader Master Pro in my opinion! m.thomannmusic.com/icon_platform_m.htm
I want to thank you, Anne-Kathrin, for your truth about all of this marketing things around our professional hardware and software - you really destroy these mistakes in my mind) Really happy, that RUclips suggested your channel to me)
Glad you like my videos! Thanks for watching!
It's super cool to listen to a real professional composer on RUclips, i thought even the professionals just used a simple macbook these days and that was it. Very interesting to see the whole technical side of it, even though theres no application to my own life whatsoever :D
No. Professionals don't use macbooks. Tom Holkenborg's channel is a real Hollywood level movie composer level take on this. He's also using a PC and he doesn't game.
Just getting started in media composition and you and your channel are an absolute gift! Thank you so much for your time, talents and generosity 🙏
Thank you so much, I'm so happy to hear that!
I’m the same. Been doing music for years but have been getting into media composition over the last year. Someone mentioned Anne so I am going to sit, listen and learn. I’m a bit lost with where to go with it all. I am at this moment a sponge.
This is the first I'm hearing of you. You have very solid advice and I like your pointing out using multiple smaller hard drives vs. 1 or 2 large drives. And it's not just for spinning disks. You'll get faster load times overall with SSDs and NVMes as well that way.
But whatever disks people are using PLEASE make sure you spread them out over as many disk io buses as possible. Typically disk SATA connections that are stacked vertically on top of each other are part of the same bus and therefore sharing bandwidth... check your hardware manual. If you're not using all your separate disk io buses, you're wasting potential speed and bandwidth.
Lastly make sure the disk connection you're plugging into can go as fast as your disk! If you put a brand new SSD in an older motherboard, use the fastest SATA connection available on your motherboard.
I appreciated your views on uncluttering the workspace and resisting the temptation to overindulge in gear. Thanks a ton.
Thanks for watching! Yes, I’m a strong supporter of creatively making the things you already have work before buying new gear and thinking that will solve every problem.
Anne - the sheer musical talent and expertise you have is what you are all about, as opposed to expensive gear for the sake of it. But it's also great that you are clearly knowledgeable about your gear and can repair and maintain it yourself - not reliant on helpers and techies. Much respect to you. x
I totally agree with you. The cutting edge makes everything simple. We don't need so many things. But many producers who wanna show off tend to have (but not using) too much equipment.
My system is also pretty much a minimalist setting. I have less than yours, but no problem with making music at all.
Such a great overview! Thanks for sharing! Toward the end you mentioned downsized set ups. In the actual MIDI Rack sampler/ Gigastudio days I had 7 PCs for gigastudio, Mac for the DAW, several rack samplers and 3 Yamaha O2R mixers with all those midi channels running through actual cables. It was a lot of stuff! Now I’m down to just one computer, 3 monitor screens and a few peripherals (external SSD drives, Presonus Quantum) midi keyboard and fader unit and that’s it! It’s great we don’t need SOOO much stuff anymore:)
Indeed, I've always found smaller setups to be more enjoyable. Fewer gadgets, fewer problems, more time for writing and creativity! :-)
Thanks! Very interesting. One thing I would stress is the importance of backing up and archiving to external drives. A power supply malfunction can wipe out every internal drive in your system. This has happened to me.
It’ll technically be fine if you have an online backup but I agree, better safe than sorry, especially if this is your main income source. God forbid, something gets fried and the online backup hasn’t finished uploading yet.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer I work for an IT MSP and I can testify to the number of customers that prove this maxim: "There are two types of people: 1. Those who do backups. 2. Those who will do backups."
If you don't backup now, you will eventually.
i will address that to the group...good subject..
Being new to the industry, I really appreciated this video - thank you!
I'm glad this is helpful! Thanks for watching!
Great hard drive and server advice! I'm reorganizing my instrument files across different drives as you've suggested - Thanks!
Glad this was helpful!
Its a master class in half an hour ...really grateful for sharing ur knowledge
Thank you, it's my pleasure!
Great conclusion. I love to work with VE Pro and use two computers, too. Seven years ago I switched from Apple to PC / Windows. LOVE it.
Yes, I love VEPro and I'm very much enjoying the new PC. There are some minor things I miss about the Mac system but there seem to be way more advantages to the PC than there are drawbacks.
Just a very well done RUclips channel...love to watch every new post. Keep on the good job Anne-Kathrin, and the music too of course.
I’ve worked on headphones for about 5 years now with sonarworks I bought my Sennhieser 600HDs from them. Made a big difference and translates really well. I usually only have to make minor adjustments in my monitors which also run sonarworks . Nice to hear professionals are doing the same!
Couldn’t agree more about working on headphones. Great speakers, small speakers and quality headphones are a very useful formula for making mix decisions, but I primarily do most creative work in phones.
11:57 In tone with your lipstick, of course :) That's why they made it for, now i know why)
Yeah, the backlash on using headphones is confusing a lot of beginners I think.
When I started out I thought I should spend 3000$ on speakers, and 2000$ (and a ton of work) on room treatment and room correction software.
That seems reasonable if you're a mixing engineer, I just spend 150$ on headphones, and it works great.
Indeed! I thought the same! And then I started working at a variety of composer studios here in LA and headphones were really the norm. Mixing engineers will still of course work on a proper surround system but having treated rooms and high end speakers is essential for their job. It's not essential for our job. Those thousands of dollars are better spent on strong computers, controllers, and software.
I find open back headphones are a nice compromise. I have AT-R70 and they sound great. It almost feels like you are listening to monitors. And frankly, if your room isn't treated, then monitors won't give you an honest mix either.
@@soundtreks Agree. But monitors are great to hear music at full blast with their inherent bass. I just love listening to loud music and feeling the bass vibration everywhere, haha, even if my room is not treated (and I am not at all a pro but I have good ears, so for now I consider the sound of my JBL MK3 very good anyways).
@Anna-Katherin Dern : just found your channel a couple days ago and I love the content! Keep it up!
It is actually great to see a professional discuss their equipment. It shows that on top of a good pc setup you don't need that much of music hardware to do great stuff. So many people obsess and buy extremely expensive music hardware.
Thank you so much for the guidance and wisdom. Your videos have been extremely beneficial to my learning about the composing industry and I'm so grateful for your channel. As an upcoming composer and synthestrator, I'm very much looking forward to viewing more of your videos in the near future.
I'm glad this is helpful!
I work from a 16" MacBook Pro with no problems as i have to be / like to be mobile as in NOT tied to my studio..but you have some good advice in there! Love your sample library vids!
It certainly depends on your needs and workflow - and what style of music one writes. I couldn't do what I need to do for my projects on a MacBook Pro and I'd find it very risky to work from a machine I can't open and quickly fix myself on a deadline. But I understand that some people have to have a portable setup.
Hello Anne from France (Paris) Best reco & channel for Composer. Very efficient, pragmatic and usefull. Thank you to share you're advices and feeback on each videos you publish ;)
Thank you so much for your kind words! I really appreciate it!
Don't know why I didn't run into your YT channel before but your youtube channel is the one I was looking for for years! I realy like your way of putting things in perspective. With this YT contribution you helped me making my own hardware choises. Thanks for making and shairing!
I've always been a Mac user, but I totally agree with you on the performance vs. price issues! Danke @Anne-Kathrin.
Down to earth, useful information. Rare and precious to us starting out. Thanks
So happy to hear that!
I just want to say that I have Sonarworks 4 for speakers and it is awesome!
Thanks for the video!!
That's wonderful! I only hear great things about this product!
Thank you! You Legend! I've been binge watching your videos and I've learned a LOT!. God bless you!
I’m so glad to hear that! Thank you for watching!
You are a very special human being. Thank you for all the informations and the videos, and your music.
Are those Floppy Disks by the way???
My pleasure! The floppy disks are coasters :-)
Thank you again Anne-Kathrin, your channel is by far one of the most useful I know for media composers ! As a die-hard mac user, this is eye-opening... I will have to do some research and a have good think. Also, I was sure I needed to upgrade my monitors to a 10,000€ system at some point, now I'm not so sure I need to do that so soon. I use the DT 880 pros, also thanks to your advice. Tkx and bonjour from France!
Thanks a lot for ensuring me that mixing on headphones is common in a professional context, and for reminding me that fancy hardware actually comes with some technical trouble. Points that are rarely made.
Her message is it's fine to 'work' with phones doing general duties, but mixing is not recommended w/phones unless that's the best you have to work with. I'm sure Anne doesn't need to do her own mixing.
Been binge watching your videos - you're fantastic and I'm learning so much. Also mentioning Fry's made me sad. haha. Looking forward to more binging.
Hi, Anne! You are a great person and thank you for sharing your work ! I use HD6XX & DT770pro with dSONIQ RealPhones (It's do more then Sonarworks) and I'm very happy with phone correction + ROOM simulation as plugin and system driver too. In addition will buy (later) and Acustica Audio SIENNA for more room options when mixing and mastering. Be safe :)
You have a great turn of phrase. I almost spat my coffee out when you described fanboys/girls crawling out of the gutter. 😂
This is all great advice. I’ve never understood why people say you need speaker monitors for production, you absolutely do not. As long as you know your headphones/speakers/whatever and regularly reference against current tracks, you’re good.
For mixing, yea, you need speaker monitors, but even then you still need a good set of reference headphones and preferably other sets of speakers reference through…including your car stereo. But speaker monitors are near useless without room treatment, your music will not sound the way you think it does on other systems until you treat your room. It’s miserable…
The key to good audio when you're using headphones or even speakers is to get them as acoustically flat as possible. I use the very very old Alesis Monitor One MK2. I've had them for more than 25 years and they're still working just fine. They were almost always found in every studio back in the Early 90s. They have a flat response, meaning they don't color your sound. If you use a frequency analyzer to compare and contrast the original signal compared to the sound from the headphones or speakers, you can see how close they are. If there is any majore discrepancies at a particular frequecy band, you can compensate. By having the monitors and headphones be as close acoustically as the original source, what you hear is what was produced
After a whole year, I just met your channel. One of the best suggestions of youtube. Love your down to earth explanation and complete honest and clear explanation. Immediately subscribed.
Cool. I’m looking to do a pc upgrade soon due to struggling with orchestral compositions on an old system.... though not got $4K lol.
Love to see your software and instrument go-to’s in a future video.
Thanks Anne-Kathrin
Thanks for watching! Software and libraries are next on my list!
Setting up 2 computers - 1 for samples and 1 for DAW - sounds cool. I wish I knew more about this. If I use two Macs is this a simple process? Which DAWs are compatible with this way of working? It sounds so great.
Awesome... I would suggest Backblaze for online backup and Carbon Copy Cloner for offline cloning/scheduling backups!
Thanks Anne for this super and very cool video tutorial.
Thank you for watching!
Vielen lieben Dank für die Einblicke in Deine Produktionsumgebung, Anne-Kathrin! Das fand ich sehr lehrreich.
Grüße aus Kiel, Renee
Always learning with your fantastic videos. Thank you very much!
That’s so great to hear!
Super helpful . . . Thanks for sharing! Completely agree with you about earphones - much more detail - I always compose with phones as well.
Thank you so much! Great video.
Thanks for watching!
Ich finde Deine Herangehensweise Klasse. Praktisch, uneitel und lösungsorientiert. Ach, kompetent habe ich noch vergessen. Achse, zum Mixen über Kopfhörer gibt es ein tolles Waves Plugin, das auf das NX-System aufsetzt und die Abhörcharakteristika verschiedener Studios emuliert und Korrekturkurven der gängigsten Kopfhörer enthält. Ich bewundere Dich. Viel Erfolg.
Great insights Anne. Interesting to hear that so many professional composers use headphones. Currently because of my financial and living situation i haven’t been able to get studio monitors and room treatment. I didn’t know mixing with headphones could go such a long way. What you’re saying is making me consider saving up for better headphones instead of monitors+acoustic treatment
Wow ! A very impressive setup ( as well as real world knowledge) for your host - server hardware environment. A Smart strategy working with your storage. Excellent knowledge transfer and delivery in this video.
Great video Anne, I am amazed with amount of knowledge you have accumulated and the versatility between music and technology, I think every musical artist needs both these days. I personally build my own computers and have one computer system for everything, not ready for 2 computer system yet, very similar to what you do, although I have noticed some ancient floppies on your desk!! I hope they are a coaster for your coffee. with 6 core HT, 7 SSD's, 64GB Ram I am able to get 40-50 tracks without any real pressure on the system, I really enjoy doing mock ups, maybe people here can check them out. Cheers!
Haha, the floppy disks are indeed coasters for my coffee. They are seemingly the secret star of my videos. :-) I agree, every musical artist needs to get comfortable with tech as well as the art. You may not need a two computer system by the way. Plenty of composers are now slowly transitioning to single computer setups because both the latest Intel builds as well as the AMD Ryzen Threadripper builds are powerful enough to build one massive machine that runs everything. It's certainly where we're headed in the future.
What a smart woman. Thank you.
You have an amazing attention to detail that is really rare to find somewhere else!
That floppy disks on the desk make me question every single fact that Anne-Kathrin is pointing out 😂
Very-very useful and good advices for any computer user (besides musicians), thanks.
Very Helpful!Also really good points!
Glad you find this helpful!
Some of the wisest advise I've seen in years! What a superb video.
great to know that using headphones is ok. Thanks for presenting those points in regard to them. :-)
Thank you for watching!
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer no problem. I enjoyed your presentation greatly. :-)
This is very cool and inspiring, thank you.
Glad to hear that!
BTW while I was listening to/watching this I was downloading Nucleus Core, cutting my veggies for my meals, washing up, taking out the trash and relacing my trainers. 😸😸
I've seen a half dozen or so of your videos. I'm so brand new to this genre and very grateful for your content. Can you talk about your DAW(s) of choice, maybe pros and cons for this genre? And also, can you do a walkthrough of a good basic template? Maybe you could discuss the strategy and thought behind designing templates. Thank you again for your great presentations!
I've already made videos about all of this. Hope they will be helpful to you!
Thank you. Most helpful.
Cheers to a more minimalist setup! It's been interesting to see, even with the new Mac generation, how composers are shifting to a PC setup. Thank you for sharing your insights!
Saw your wonderful choir video, and so watching your hardware video surprised me how relevant. I’ve been using Macs since 1990 and just discovered a Microsoft machine that was affordable, and is kind of a surprising solution right now for me. Thank you for all the great advice, on redundant back up, but especially of the Uninterrupted power s( U.P.S. ). You’re a great musical talent, that isn’t relying on, and at the mercy of, some technician to bring it out. You can produce yourself, which is also a great talent
Great video. Thank you for being thorough. Great content.
I'm so glad I've come across your youtube channel! Thanks so much for all of the expertise you are sharing. :-)
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad you like the channel!
Glad you avoided the platform and DAW arguments!
Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure!
vielen Dank für die vielen sehr detailierten infos! Großen Respekt für Deine Arbeit! Ich hoffe es läuft weiter sehr erfolgreich für Dich !
Vielen lieben Dank!
This is once more a beautiful video. As an IT Specialist it toally agree with you about the unnecessary use of a mac-mac connection 😂. Also your Threadripper advice is a very strong part, because Intel's XEON's or Extreme's are sometimes more than double the price of an AMD, and for processing FX you definitely want to have cores cores and more cores 😀. Let me say that from a technically aspect you really have two beautiful PC's, I always preferred Intel above AMD but when it comes to cores, Intel really lacks here. Great choice of Motherboard aswell ! 6:45 you got me 😂
Thank you! I'm indeed very happy with my PCs and for the price, I can invest in upgrades or entirely new machines every 3 years or so anyway. Not regretting the switch from Mac at all.
This is extremely good, practical advice.
Thankyou, Anne. I was particularly curious about the backup solution you use as I'm trying to figure out how I will solve that problem myself at the moment.
Great information here! Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
I'd like to share my experience with headphones and sonarwork. It has been really useful to me, I'm not gonna lie. BUT, since i got my pair of Meze Neo 99 (which is not recommended for mixing at the first place), I saw a huge difference between with or without sonarwork. And it's clearly better without it.
The reason is simple : you don't listen to music with flat signal, and almost nobody does actually. I totally agree with the "know your equipment" part. Cause since I accepted that the low end were boosted on a pretty wide range, and the 4k Hz and around was reduced, and that I get used to it, I just got my mixes better.
And after a thousand hours using it, my mixes are balanced, sound like I want them to, and iZotope Tonal Balance Control confirms. Cause this plug in is btw, way more useful than any Sonarwork-like plug-in in my humble opinion.
And finally, a bit of a match EQ on the master bus, at the end of the session, with a really well selected reference track is perfect to adjust the little defaults my headphones have made me doing, especially on this 4k Hz point I was talking about. It's not always doable, but when it is it's efficient, and it perfectly does the job for me and my collegues.
Speakers and rooms are too expansive for 99% of us, and I agree with the fact that is a better choice to work on headphones, unless you indeed have 10k to invest in a room and decent speakers...
Something that is never mentioned is that our own hearing has different frequency responses to other people. If my hearing is not so good with high frequency pitches, I would mix it too high for others if using flat responses calibrated headphones. Therefore a hearing test would have to be considered in a calibration software.
Love the information ans how you say pa-ra-pher-rals. Too cool!
Wow... great advice!... you are AWESOME!
I do physical backups on HDDs with Windows Backup. Mostly because if my system drive goes down, I loose my LTSC key which is a one-time use.
BEAUTIFULLY DONE - Love the way you present your info, how you share the knowledge, the depths to that end, and your conversational style. (one request, is on each video, can you also demonstrate whatever piece of equipment you are talking about, by playing some of your own music. I'm delighted when I hear your clips, and always want MORE, and LONGER. Love 'em.
Nice video. I totally agree on the use of headphones instead of speakers if you are on an unprepared room. My case is very similar, I just record things at home and the room is not prepared for that, so I use headphones although I also have the speakers, but headphones are better for that case.
Great advice on taking backups, that's important for sure.
Amazing Videos and Content !!! Thank you
Thanks for watching, glad you like it!
Very informative thank you!!
Thank you for watching!
How did I not discover this channel before! Great!
Thank you for the support!
Have you ever thought about going for a branded graphics workstation PC (e.g. HP Z4 or Lenovo P620). You can get 5 year next busines day on site support, which is important if you are a pro composer. I replaced my old workstation last year, with a Lenovo P620. It’s an absolute beast, using an AMD thread-ripper pro CPU. (Available with 12-64 cores), supports up to 1TB Ram, 2x PCIe gen4 nVMe slots and 6 (5 free) Sata connectors. I bought the 32-core version with 128GB Ram and 2 1TB nVMe drives for the OS (mirrored)and installed 5 Sata SSD’s from my old computer in it. I can confirm that it doesn’t complain about anything I throw at it. It’s important to know that graphics workstations never come with a graphis card as users tend to have very different requirements. I ordered a Nvidia RTX4000 (8GB vram) which supports my two 32” 4K monitors.
When you look to getting new speakers check out Kali Audio. The LP-6 and LP-8 are great but even better the IN-5 is what I have. Very good in a smallish room. A little treatment and you'll be good.
Solid advice, thank you!
Love your explanation here!
I've done some room correction work in my small room but that was only to dampen sound a bit towards my neighbour. I am very pleased with my decision to have a woolen floor covering, I love the sound in here with my Kali LP 6 speaker, without even using any bass traps. I use a Beyer Dynamic 770 ( a closed headphone) instead. Also pleased with my Focusrite 8i6 though I know there is better stuff out there (although not fitting my budget).
I'm a bit late to this video so I expect you have figured a small desktop MIDI controller with faders by now. My nephew uses Monogram (née Palette Gear) and loves it. I've heard Christian Henson over at Spitfire Audio enthusing about it too. Great video as always.
I know I'm late to this party, but just wanted to add that I've moved to a 2x Xeon Cpu Server as my main machine... keeping a look out, I found an 2x 8-core (16 cores total) at 3.3ghz (E5-2667 v2) HP Z820 with 32gb RAM with K4000 video for €700. Works great and a great price... I've also occasionally seen 2x Xeon 6-cores at 3.3ghz or higher for around €600
Surprised you did go RME which have rock solid drivers for Windows based systems. Universal Audio have some great stuff. Being in keyboard sales (and media composer), I highly recommend Arturia Keylab 49 or 61 series. Metal case, wood bookends. Great quality. The NI stuff is good but the action is springier and they aren't made as well. Unless you are playing in piano parts, orchestral writing is possible with smaller keyboards, especially if you are using expression maps in Cubase for switching articulations. Oh, and TOTALLY agree about headphones, I've never had any criticisms about my mixes and they are all using headphones. Open Back headphones are amazing. Yeah the HDs are amazing. I went with their competitor, the Audio Technica AT-R70 which I could literally wear 24/7 with no ear fatigue.
There are many ways to go about this and many would have worked for me. I've worked on so many rigs at so many studios and have visited even more since most of my friends are also my colleagues. So I picked what I liked best or what worked best with my particular workflow and what fit my needs the most at the best price point. It'll certainly change and evolve over time the same way my template changes and evolves along with my workflow. But some things I just don't need for my particular workflow or writing style. At least not right now and not for the space I'm in.
I spot the blue RBS book on the stand behind you
Loved everything about your presentation. I'm going for a PC that combines the best of VI plus PC-VR combination. I didn't catch the name of that HD drop in unit. I want that! I just bought a Studio Logic 88 key controller and find myself consuming film and doc mockup productions information, although I don't have much interest in it creatively...I think it all sounds mostly the same to me without much latitude for individual expression. I feel it's mostly about getting a pay-check.
It would be nice to have a portable configuration recommendation video. For those who travel often.
I use the Shure SRH840 to mix, record and listen to most of my (and other peoples) music. Combined with dSoniqs Realphones (basically the same as the Waves plugin, which I also use) it does the trick for me. My monitors are pretty cheap and lack low frequencies (Cakewalk MA-15D), BUT, as you said, if you know your equipment well it completely works out.
These videos are great.
+1000 on the drive reader / cloner. Always clone your C or macOS drive. =) Awesome video!
Your intros before the main video are Beautiful! :) Keep up the great work!! :)
Thank you! It's a good excuse to get on my bike and get some fresh air, sunshine, and exercise.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Nice! :) A way of clearing your mind for sometime. Like a way of resting after your maybe tired of working for a particular time. Hope I'm somehow close to correct by my thoughts.
Yes, absolutely! It’s good to get out and get some fresh air and vitamin D after being indoors staring at a screen. It’s also my way of getting in a bit of exercise and staying somewhat fit. Having a purpose to get out there for some footage is even better.
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer Cool! :) That's good :) I sent a question initially related to the sound quality of instruments you use in Sibelius. message on Instagram. Haven't seen any reply. (@pax40004real) Hope I'm not targeted on blade runner world :). Would like to talk when your free on Instagram if that's ok with you.
Hi Anne-Kathrin, first of your videos I've seen and it was very informative! I had a question about streaming samples from the second machine, and about network bandwidth. Do you run gigabit ethernet or higher between the two? Is GbE fast enough in your experience? I ask because I've never had this setup but I'm considering it and wondering about going 10G. Anyway, great channel! Cheers.
Nice and useful video. Two remarks: 1) a physical backup in another location might be essential in case of a fire or a flooding. 2) I'm intrigued by the floppy disks. Modern desktops don't have floppy drives anymore, so do you have the hardware to read them?
Hello ! thank you for your sharing. I love your work on SPRITE SISTERS ! harry potter inspired isn't it ?
Thanks. I don't need to spend to much than your setup.
Hi, yes, you are right about the PreSonus USB interface, is not available anymore. They came out with one called USB 96.
Thanks for all your great explanation, Anne! I was in agony questioning if I have to buy the insanely expensive new Mac Pro which will be at least $20K for my setting. I'd like to recommend ICON Platform M+ for the 100mm faders. It has a small footprint and mapping editor you can save your MIDI CC settings (As a MIDI CC controller, it doesn't need the display screen, D2).
I'm glad this was helpful! Yeah, seeing the price tag of the new Mac Pro sealed the deal for me to switch to PC. I've done several movies on it now without any problems whatsoever - never looked back! I'll look into your recommendation, thank you for sharing!
@@AnneKathrinDernComposer My pleasure, Anne! Happy composing! Here's the link for the fader! It's only $300 and better than the old and expensive Fader Master Pro in my opinion! m.thomannmusic.com/icon_platform_m.htm
Thank you so much you videos are so informative... do you have a video on how to set up and utilize a server machine